Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ murder

Today’s Jesus and Mo, called “fell”, is a bit puzzling to me, but then again it’s not yet 6 a.m. in Hawaii and I haven’t had coffee. Perhaps a reader or two could explain the strip. Why is “fell down” so important?

The author’s email with the link came with this note:

“Here’s that weird passage from Acts which prompted this week’s strip:

Acts 5 King James Version (KJV)

But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,

2 And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and
brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

3 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the
Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?

4 Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not
in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou
hast not lied unto men, but unto God.

5 And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great
fear came on all them that heard these things.

6 And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.

7 And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing
what was done, came in.

8 And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much?
And she said, Yea, for so much.

9 Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt
the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband
are at the door, and shall carry thee out.

10 Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and
the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her
by her husband.

11 And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these
things.”

48 Comments

I think the implication is that god (e.g. Peter) are doing a bit of a “Saudi government”.
“Whats that you say, this person has gone missing…entirely innocent I assure you they weren’t here…err…they left before…err…they started a fight…they threw themselves on a bone-saw…”
In other words–we cant believe a word of it. They were murdered and sloppily covered up

I think the author of Jesus N’ Mo is showing how the authors and translators of the Bible (whew!) gloss over something by writing “fell”. That something, the author of JnM is suggesting, is the M-word.

This is part of the stuff that Marx and others referred to as Christian communism, I think. I don’t know how historical it really is; Acts is regarded as fiction by mainstream scholarship but it may contain correct details all the same. (Think “historical” as the subgenre, perhaps.)

Most fiction literature has some base in reality. An independent sources, Lucian’s Peregrinus, says:

“Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another after they have transgressed once, for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws. Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property, receiving such doctrines traditionally without any definite evidence.”

He does not mention any murders, but the experience of all socialist societies is that, once people are forced to surrender “voluntarily” their property, lethal force is to be expected.

I don’t like the recent fad to portray capitalist countries as socialist paradise. In true socialist countries, as mine was between 1944 and 1989, there have been numerous cases of such killings. I tries twice to submit more details, but WordPress did not like the link or the code.
It was much worse in the Soviet Union.

Except that we don’t have much of a source for the *Christian* context. I think it is pretty well attested that the mystery religions worked that way, so it seems plausible enough that Christianity (effectively a Jewish/Hebraicized mystery religion) was like that too, but I don’t know what sources we have.

Actually, it’s clearer when the wife gets interrogated ; they claimed to have sold the parcel for X, but declared they did for X -Y, hiding the fact they kept part of it.

That’s why Peter says they hide something from God, and that they were at liberty to to whatever they pleased with the money, as it belonged to them. No need to lie, just say X, and give Z, keeping Y if you wish.

It implies they merely wanted to shine to the community, but by retaining part of it secretly.

Acts 4:
“32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.
33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all
34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales
35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.”

So selling your property and putting all the money at the apostles’ feet was made the norm of this community.
The Scripture is silent what happened then the apostles ran out of other people’s money :-).

I have friends among the Hutterites, a 16th-century sect which has hundreds of communal farms on the western plains. They told me that their communal lifestyle is based on this part of Acts when early Christians supposedly shared all their wealth. I asked the Hutterites if they thought that God killed Ananais and his wife. To them, they ‘fell down’ and died out of shame and regret over their selfishness.
I can’t say if that’s a common interpretation among fundamentalists, but I think that’s how this one group took it.

In that period of church they lived a communist period -sell and share everything- because they thought Jesus was coming back soon. Was Peter that had to clarify them -as f@f use to say,accommodationist theologians- that one day for god are 1000 year (that is, Jesus will delay a little…). And Paul finally stopped the “experimental communism”: “The one that doesn’t works, doesn’t eat too”.
That because although many joined the sect sharing everything, Jesus could not find the way to come back and problems with money aroused…
Fell down: like Adan and Eve fell down, or the fallen angel… To try to hide the killing in front of the community, no doubt. God did it!!

“Some speculate that these two deaths were from natural causes. Perhaps Ananias died from shock or guilt, but Peter pronounced Sapphira’s death before she died, and the coincidental timing and place of their deaths indicate that this was indeed God’s judgment. The question is why. Why would God kill two people for lying?

“God’s reasons for bringing about the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira involve His abhorrence of sin, the hypocrisy of the couple, and the lesson for the rest of the church, both then and now. It can be easy today to gloss over the holiness of God, to forget that He is righteous and pure and that He hates sin wholeheartedly. This particular sin of hypocrisy in the church was dealt with swiftly and decisively.”

I guess this God is especially vengeful, hence Jesus wants Mo to believe that they died by misadventure, not by God’s action.

One sure thing: if it’s in Acts, it’s either made up, sloppily cribbed from some secular source, or an obfuscation of a real event or real person.

Ananius & Sapphira’s story is very similar to Achan’s in the book of Joshua, and Glaucus’ tale in Herodotus. Josephus’ Antiquities also mentions an Ananius circa AD 61-64, a very rich & greedy Pharisee known for bribing officials.

I find it fascinating that they decided to put this passage in. I try to imagine what they were thinking. Did they think they were fooling anyone or was it because they knew only the priests would be literate, so the masses would never see the obvious?

Brought up Anglican* if that counts for anything, and I have never seen or heard any hint anywhere that this passage refers to Ananias and Sapphira being murdered. It was always presented as this is what happens when you cheat God: you die of shame (which God could have prevented so maybe He’s complicit, but, really, you brought it on yourself).

*Happily, for the last forty-odd years I haven’t had to worry about the details.